Extinction is Forever: Threatened and Endangered Species of Plants in the Americas and Their Significance in Ecosystems Today and in the Future. Proceedings of a Symposium Held at the New York Botanical Garden, May 11-13, 1976, in Commemoration of the Bicentennial of the United States of America.
1977 · Bronx, New York
by Prance, Ghillean and Thomas S. Elias; Editors.
Bronx, New York: The New York Botanical Garden, 1977. Royal octavo, paperbound (stiff white, full-color photo illus. wrappers), vi + 437 pp. Very Good+, with neat former-owner stamp, light foxing & rubbing to covers. From Preface: In the decade preceding this bicentennial ear of the United States, much of the Western world has been confronted by a series of ominous, seemingly insoluble crises. The first of these was the threat to environmental survival, which began to reach public consciousness in the late 1960s. The second was the apparent shortage of energy resources, dramatized by the Mid-East oil embargo and greatly increased petroleum costs. The third was the economic downturn from which there still is incomplete and uneven recovery, with continuing inflation and persistent unemployment. In the minds of most people, these problems are usually regarded as separate, unrelated disorders...But each effort to solve one crisis soon comes into conflict with the solutions to others...Inevidebly, the advocates of one solution become the opponents of others...This is the world setting in which we consider the subject before us -- threatened and endangered species and ecosystems in the America. In the United States, the Smithsonian Report asserts that today 1/2oth of our extant higher-plant diversity is variously endangered or threatened with imminent or ultimate extenction, unless steps are taken to arrest the causes leading to biological impoverishment.... (Inventory #: qms450)